


Some Like It Infernal

by Waywarder



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1950s, F/F, Golden Age Hollywood, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Ineffable Wives | Female Aziraphale/Female Crowley (Good Omens), Inspired by Some Like It Hot, Mutual Pining, Shenanigans, bickerflirting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:02:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25600279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waywarder/pseuds/Waywarder
Summary: Aziraphale paused just outside the huge, gleaming studio gate, offering herself a moment to take an unneeded breath and to fluff her curls one more time. She lifted a hand up to shield her eyes against the bright, brilliant sunshine as she looked up and more closely at the gate before her.NJM Pictures. Where stars are born.She sucked in another breath. She needn’t be worried, she knew that. It was going to be a terribly easy assignment. What was that lovely expression after all? Easy as cake.Oh, my. She wondered if there were any good bakeries in this strange, strange town.In 1952, Aziraphale and Crowley are assigned to the same famous Hollywood starlet. Hijincks and pining and truly awful costumes ensue.Well, as they say... nobody's perfect.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 26
Collections: Good Omens Mini Bang





	Some Like It Infernal

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the film _Some Like It Hot_! This piece is a collaboration with the ineffably amazing artist [amie-draws](https://amie-draws.tumblr.com/).

_1952, Hollywood._

_Two days before The Flood._

Aziraphale paused just outside the huge, gleaming studio gate, offering herself a moment to take an unneeded breath and to fluff her curls one more time. She lifted a hand up to shield her eyes against the bright, brilliant sunshine as she looked up and more closely at the gate before her.

_NJM Pictures. Where stars are born._

She sucked in another breath. She needn’t be worried, she knew that. It was going to be a terribly easy assignment. What was that lovely expression after all? Easy as cake. 

Oh, my. She wondered if there were any good bakeries in this strange, strange town.

_Focus,_ whispered a voice in her head. A voice that sounded awfully familiar...

_(He hadn’t really cared for the way Gabriel looked him up and down._

__

__

“Is there a problem?” Aziraphale asked, fighting to keep any nerves out of his voice.

“It’s Hollywood, Aziraphale,” Gabriel said as though that alone explained everything. “Tinseltown!”

“Yes, I understand,” Aziraphale replied, cordially. “I have been to the moving pictures before.”

_“Yes, that’s why you were chosen for the assignment,” Gabriel smiled the familiar smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So, maybe something a little more glamorous?”)_

Aziraphale smoothed her free hand over her A-line khaki skirt. Her suitcase was clenched tightly in the other. A suitcase filled to bursting with various silky and frilly odds and ends. Not that she needed them. She could easily miracle up anything she wanted, but she did so need to paint the portrait of a fresh-faced, eager would-be-starlet if this was going to work.

A light blue blouse was tucked into the skirt, and there was a (in Aziraphale’s opinion) rather darling tartan scarf tied around her throat. She had snapped, and her white-blonde curls had extended themselves down to brush just against her chin. Some shiny pink stuff glistened on her lips. 

It was the perfect cover. The sweet, innocent new actress from across the pond, here to deliver the word of God to Hollywood’s most rapidly rising bombshell.

Angel Goode.

Aziraphale smirked a little to herself. She couldn’t help it. “Angel Goode.” Her job here was as good as done and her cake was as good as eaten. 

Aziraphale approached the little booth just outside of the studio gate. A man in uniform sat there, idly flipping through his newspaper. Aziraphale cleared her throat to get his attention. He started a little in his seat and turned to snap at her:

“Hey, listen, lady! Don’t you-”

He stopped in his diatribe as he took a moment to, as Gabriel had, look Aziraphale up and down. He let out a low whistle that made the hairs on the back of Aziraphale’s neck stand up. He adjusted his hat (the better to see her with, my dear) and leaned forward. 

“If you’re quite finished,” Aziraphale sniffed daintily, turning up her nose. “I should be on your list. My name is Zira Fellhard, and I’m here to report for duty on one of your upcoming motion pictures.”

“You a chorus girl, doll?” he leered. “They’re going to be replacing Angel Goode’s name on the marquee.”

“Hardly,” Aziraphale tried smiling now. She’d overly polite-d her way out of worse situations than this one. “Please, though, if you could look for my name on your list, I do need to be moving on.”

“Aww,” the booth man frowned. “What’s the rush, doll? Stick around a while.”

“Not ‘doll,’” Aziraphale insisted. “Zira Fellhard. My name should be right there-”

It all happened awfully fast. Aziraphale reached forward to point at the man’s list, he grasped her wrist, she went to snap herself free with her other hand, but before she could do anything-

Aziraphale felt a familiar shift in the air, and suddenly the rude booth man keeled over his own list.

Aziraphale straightened her sleeve primly, not daring just yet to turn around.

“I could have handled that myself,” she finally said.

A familiar voice drawled:

“Aw, but if you went around getting yourself out of your own scrapes, angel, what would I ever do for fun?”

Aziraphale whirled around, retort ready on her tongue, but instead-

She gasped and dropped her suitcase, frilly bits spilling out onto the hot pavement.

“ _Crowley!_ ” Aziraphale hoped that she managed to sound appropriately outraged. “Whatever are you wearing?”

Crowley grinned at her, of course she did. “Listen, angel, we’re not all built to rip off Audrey Hepburn quite so flagrantly.”

Indeed now.

Crowley- tall, legs-to-the-skies Crowley- stood before Aziraphale in the shining Hollywood sun, wearing a pair of wide-legged black trousers with a short sleeved black blouse tucked into the waist. Her hair was an auburn waterfall that danced across her narrow shoulders. She stood there, as usual, in defiance of Something, Anything, with that damned grin on her face and her hands on her hips. 

Aziraphale wanted to pluck the sunglasses off of her cocky face, and and-

Well, she didn’t entirely know what next.

She never had.

“What are you doing here?” Aziraphale demanded to know, though a creeping feeling in her guts told her that she already knew the answer.

“Oh, you think your lot is so original?” Crowley raised an eyebrow. “You’re not the only ones with your eyes on Angel Goode.” Crowley suddenly furrowed her brow. “‘Angel Goode.’ ‘Angel.’ That’s going to be confusing.”

“Around here,” Aziraphale said. “You are to refer to me as Zira Fellhard.”

Crowley threw back her head and laughed, sunlight catching in her marvelous waves. Aziraphale blushed a little. She’d been rather proud of her starlet name. Word play and all that.

“And what precisely is so funny?” Aziraphale demanded to know.

“Oh, nothing,” Crowley choked back another laugh. “I just can’t wait to read about you in the trades, Miss Fellhard. Breaking hearts left and right with a name like that, I expect.”

Aziraphale blushed a little harder.

“I’ve no such intentions at all, and you know that,” Aziraphale insisted. “And what awful thing are you calling yourself out here, _Anthony?_ ”

“Just Tony here, angel.”

“With a y, or an i?”

“I hardly see why that should matter.”

Aziraphale gaped at her. “It’s spelling, Crowley! Of course it matters!”

Aziraphale was gearing up for another protest on behalf of the Written Word when an idea seemed to strike Crowley’s mind.

“Listen, Zira,” Crowley began, voice smoother and lower than before. “No reason we ought to both be out here languishing in this awful sun…”

Of course. Certainly.

The Arrangement.

Aziraphale bit her bottom lip. She took a long look at the cool, gorgeous Tony (i?) Crowley and suddenly felt so small and distinctly unglamourous, not that this sort of thing bothered her, please understand…

No.

Crowley had made fun of her clever name.

“I think I have a counter proposal for you, my dear.” Aziraphale snapped her fingers, righting her fallen suitcase in a jiffy. 

An eyebrow shot up over Crowley’s glasses. “Oh? Do tell, angel.”

“What would you say to a wager of sorts?”

“Depends on what’s at stake, Zira.”

As Aziraphale opened her mouth to reveal her scheme, another uniformed man stumbled out through the studio gate, gaping at Aziraphale and Crowley.

“Where are you girls supposed to be?” he barked. “And what happened to Frank?!”

“We’re here to report for service on _A Little Slice of Heaven,_ ” Aziraphale rushed to answer the man before Crowley could snap again. It wouldn’t do at all for her low profile if her first day was spent drowning in mysteriously dispatched security guards.

“As for Frank,” Crowley purred beside her. “We’re not all cut out for this heat, are we now? C’mon, Miss Fellhard.”

And Crowley grasped Aziraphale by the elbow and pulled her past the mystified security guard and through the golden gates of NJM Pictures. 

***

As to what exactly Zira Fellhard was cooking up in that fluffy blonde head of hers, well, Toni Crowley wouldn’t find out right away.

_Zira Fellhard._

Crowley allowed herself an indulgent eye roll as she sized up her hereditary enemy. Despite the B-picture name, she was still Aziraphale incarnate, from the tartan bow at her throat to the shiny Oxfords on her feet. Crowley bit her tongue to stop from sighing out loud. She’d be bailing Zira out of trouble over here just as often as she’d have time to actually tempt Angel Goode to the side of wickedness. 

They finally reached the outside of the massive sound stage. Aziraphale very obviously wrinkled her nose at the sight of it.

“Something the matter, Zira?” Crowley asked.

“I’ve never understood the appeal of the moving picture,” Aziraphale sniffed. “Where’s the connection? Where’s the passion?”

“Maybe you just haven’t been watching the right movies,” Crowley shrugged. 

Aziraphale huffed and reached forward for the sound stage door. Suddenly possessed (dammit), Crowley placed her own hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder to stop her.

“Wait wait wait,” she said to the surprised expression in Aziraphale’s big, blue eyes. “I can’t let you go in there like this. It’s like sending a baby off to wolves.”

“Excuse me!” Aziraphale cried, indignantly, a blush coloring her round cheeks. “I’ll have you recall just who amongst us is the Angel of the Eastern Gate, the Principality-”

“Yeah, well, this is Hollywood, Principality,” Crowley cut her off with a wave of her hands. This assignment was already going to be disgustingly heavenly enough. She didn’t need the reminder of Aziraphale’s pedigree. 

“So?”

“So, this is Tinseltown. And you look like a stuck-up school teacher.”

Aziraphale gaped furiously at her and Crowley fought the smile creeping over her own face. It was always fun to watch Aziraphale get worked up. It was a little like taking a snack away from a baby duck. All that fluff and squawking. 

“I’ll have you know,” Aziraphale seethed. “That I fashioned this ensemble after none other than Miss Audrey Hepburn herself.”

“Well, you’re not an Audrey yet, Zira,” Crowley cracked her knuckles. “May I?”

Aziraphale blushed deeper still and turned her head in either direction. Quite conveniently, no one was looking their way.

“Oh, all right, you foul fiend.”

Crowley snapped at Aziraphale and the angel’s look completely transformed. Her skirt was still her signature khaki, sure, but it was now a form-fitting, pencil number that did everything for the angel’s hips. The light blue blouse tucked into said skirt was artfully unbuttoned at the throat, revealing just enough of an enticing hint of the creamy skin below Aziraphale’s throat.

Aziraphale’s throat which, for the first time in centuries now, was uncovered but for a string of pearls. 

It was really a sort of stunning effect, Crowley had to hand it to herself. 

_Maybe too stunning,_ whispered a familiar and frustrating voice in her brain. _Stop it,_ she mentally snarled right back. This assignment was just that. An assignment. Not an excuse to ogle an angel in kitten heels. 

Aziraphale tugged at the bottom of her skirt effortlessly. “Must everything be quite so _tight?_ Your clothes don’t look like this!”

“Not a blonde bloody bombshell, am I, angel?”

Aziraphale crossed her arms over her chest and Crowley tried not to focus too hard on what that new posture did for the angel’s freshly revealed cleavage. 

“You don’t think I can do this,” Aziraphale accused. 

“‘S not what I said, is it?”

Aziraphale stamped her heeled foot. “One week!”

Crowley raised an eyebrow over her glasses. “One week until what?”

“We have one week to win Angel Goode to our respective sides. Whichever party is most successful in a week’s time will win the wager.”

“And, again, I have to ask, Zira. What are the stakes of this wager?”

Aziraphale bit on her shiny bottom lip as she thought about it. Crowley fought to ignore the low rumble down in her guts at this new focus on Aziraphale’s mouth. Finally:

“A decade’s worth of the other’s assignments. No coin flips or anything.”

Crowley let out a low whistle at that prospect. She was overdue for a decades long nap, after all. She reached a fire red-nailed hand forward.

“You’re on, Miss Fellhard.”

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand in hers and shook it vigorously. 

“After you, Miss Crowley.”

***

Oh, goodness.

They stepped through the doors and on to the bustling sound stage. The wide, gaping room was a flurry of lights, costumes, and shouting. Aziraphale looked immediately to Crowley to commiserate, but the demon seemed perfectly at ease in their new, frantic surroundings. 

A woman in a clipboard walked briskly toward them.

“You my new chorus girls?” She demanded without taking her eyes off of the clipboard.

It had been a long while since Aziraphale had inhabited a traditionally female corporation and she was already finding it quite wearisome. No one looked her in the eyes anymore. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale swallowed, fighting to remain polite and to make a good first impression. “My name is Zira Fellhard and this is-”

“Toni Crowley,” Crowley drawled beside her. “Charmed.”

“Yeah, you better be,” the Clipboard Woman laughed mirthlessly to herself. “We keep losing girls off this picture and we’re already behind on schedule.”

Aziraphale frowned at that. “How are you losing girls? Where are they going?”

“Shoulda called the damn thing _A Little Slice of Hell,_ if you ask me,” the Clipboard Woman continued, still barely acknowledging Aziraphale and Crowley. Finally, she looked at them and gave them a ruthless once-over. 

“You’re pretty,” she said, plainly. “She’s going to hate that.”

Before Aziraphale could ask who precisely would hate that, the Clipboard Woman clapped her hands together and two new young ladies hurried to her side.

“Get these two to wardrobe right away!”

“ _A Little Slice of Hell,_ hmm?” Crowley murmured to her as they were whisked away by the two wardrobe assistants. “Sounds like this bet is as good as won.”

“Well, yes, I suppose you would think that,” Aziraphale replied tartly. “Always taking the easy way out. True Good comes from overcoming adversity.”

Crowley cackled. “Yeah, we’ll see about that, angel.”

They were shuffled into a jam-packed little room, busting at the seams with feathers and sparkles and all manner of ridiculous things. A new frazzled young woman approached them immediately, looking like she was about to begin crying from relief.

“There you are!” she gasped. “Thank fucking God.”

Aziraphale could feel Crowley glowing happily beside her at the blaspheming. The Costume Woman began shoving garments and bits into Crowley’s arms.

“The last girl was tall,” she murmured, gratefully. “Perfect.”

She turned to Aziraphale, clearly taking her in for the first time. Her eyes lingered tragically on Aziraphale’s bosom. Aziraphale wished Crowley hadn’t magicked away her darling scarf.

“Oh, she’s going to hate you,” the Costume Woman said with something like awe in her voice as she gathered costume pieces for Aziraphale.

_Well, this is what you get for accepting a demonic makeover,_ Aziraphale admonished herself. _Consider yourself lucky you’re not running around stark naked._

“All right,” the Costume Woman clapped her hands together. “Change, please.”

No further instructions followed. 

“Pardon me,” Aziraphale asked, kindly. “Is there no dressing room or somewhere with perhaps more privacy?”

The Costume Woman laughed. “Yeah, Your Highness. I completely forgot about your personal, private dressing room.”

Aziraphale brightened. “Oh, wonderful. Would you mind terribly showing the way?”

“Zira,” Crowley growled into her ear. “She’s fucking with you.”

“Legs here gets it,” the Costume Woman smirked. “Now hurry up.”

“Come on, angel,” Crowley dragged Aziraphale a little deeper into the costume shop, away from any other eyes. Aziraphale felt a little as though she was being swallowed, surrounded as they were by gowns and suits and other costume bits at every twist and turn.

They stood there for a moment, awkwardly, clutching terribly slinky costumes.

“Well,” Aziraphale finally hissed.

“Well, what?”

“Turn around, you wily serpent! Or close your eyes. Something!”

Crowley laughed, beginning to sound as tired as Aziraphale felt. “Forgotten again that we can perform actual magic, have you?”

And she snapped and transformed.

It was… quite the look.

Long, lean, (Aziraphale fought the urge to swallow) and _gorgeous_ Crowley stood before her. Aziraphale hadn’t seen her in such scant clothing in centuries and never in this particular corporation. 

And _never in white._

Crowley was now impossibly tall, white high heels on her feet, lengthening her legs even more than usual. The costume itself was a little bit like a bathing suit, but far sparklier, revealing Crowley’s arms and shoulders and midriff and nearly everything. To complete the look, a set of faux-wings were latched to the back of the costume. 

Aziraphale had never seen Crowley the Angel before.

“Stupid,” Crowley muttered, running her fingers through hair, careful to avoid the feathery headpiece. “Fucking idiotic.”

And some of Aziraphale’s frustration with her one true adversary faded away as she realized how strange this must be for her. 

“You look lovely, my dear,” she offered, softly, feeling it was only the polite thing to do.

“Get changed, angel,” Crowley said, just as softly.

Crowley the Angel slipped away and Aziraphale blushed furiously to hear the Costume Woman immediately praise her for her legs and her stomach and her hair and-

Crowley’s beauty was never fair. Had never been. Would never be. 

Aziraphale took a deep breath and snapped her own fingers, grateful there was no mirror around. She dared one glance down to see how her own stomach spilled over the top of her little white costume pants. She groaned in frustration, grateful Crowley wasn’t still there to see her.

She’ll see you soon enough, Zira, a prissy little voice reminded her.

Aziraphale groaned again.

She scooted back out into the main space of the costume shop to find Crowley miraculously already absent. To Aziraphale’s great shame, the Costume Woman’s eyes grew wide at the sight of her. Aziraphale suspected, once again, her ample bosom had something to do with the reaction. 

“She’s going to hate me, I suspect?” Aziraphale said before the Costume Woman could.

“Watch your wings around here, darlin’,” the Costume Woman nodded in sympathy. 

“What now?” Aziraphale asked.

“All done for today,” the Costume Woman answered. “Your call is 9 am tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.”

Aziraphale nodded. She wouldn’t be. She didn’t dare.

“All the girls are in apartments around the corner,” the Costume Woman explained to Aziraphale once she had changed back into her… well, not normal clothes. She pressed a little key into Aziraphale’s palm and then clicked away, leaving the angel alone, surrounded by sequins and maribou.

A tacky set of fake wings and a grimy apartment key.

Glitz and glamour, indeed.

***

“Oh, of course,” Aziraphale grumbled as she opened the door to the little apartment only to discover-

“And what a pleasure to see you also, Zira.”

Crowley was flipping through a fashion magazine, sprawled out on a garish yellow sofa. Goodness, was everything here going to be such an assault on the eyes? 

Aziraphale sank onto the couch beside her, already exhausted. Had they really only been in Hollywood for a small handful of hours? Crowley patted Aziraphale on the shoulder.

“Aw, it’s okay, Zira,” she said, soothingly. “Just relax and give up now. I’ve got this one in the bag, after all.”

Aziraphale jerked away from Crowley’s touch, the flames of frustration stoked anew in her belly. 

“Now, see here, demon,” Aziraphale hopped back off of the couch, her hands finding her hips as she surveyed Crowley. 

“Oh, I see plenty, angel.”

“You underestimate me,” Aziraphale fought to keep the pout off of her lips. She needed to be strong, intimidating. “And it shall be your undoing.”

Crowley got up herself now, drawing herself up to her full height and stepping forward to Aziraphale. Aziraphale tried to ignore the quickened beat of her own heart at this fresh proximity to Crowley’s ruby lipstick, to the spicy scent of her perfume, to her long throat, already slightly tanned from the sunshine…

“Not gonna make this easy on you, Zira,” Crowley purred.

“Well, what a coincidence,” Aziraphale huffed. “Neither am I.”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“Fucking excellent.”

“Marvelous.”

Aziraphale didn’t know if she wanted to slap the smirk off of Crowley’s face or to-

Crowley suddenly frowned, sincerity softening her expression. “You all right, angel? You look a bit flushed.”

“Must be the heat,” Aziraphale answered immediately. Mmm. Indeed.

“Go cool off,” Crowley advised. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Aziraphale nodded, beginning to wander off into the rest of the apartment, eager to feel a cold shower on her sunshine-warm skin. She stopped at the bathroom door and turned back to look at Crowley, already settling back down onto the sofa. A familiar sadness settled in her stomach. As quietly as she could, she dared to wish there was no assignment at all. She dared to dream what it would be like to just enjoy the evening with Crowley, to sip on fruity cocktails and to joke and to tell stories and to enjoy one another’s company. 

_You are an angel of God,_ a stern voice in her head reminded her. _And you have work to do._

And then, just a tad more mischievously: 

_And a bet to win._

Aziraphale stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, determined to thoroughly destroy the beautiful demon lounging on the awful yellow sofa. 

She’d have her cake soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'm [Waywarder](https://waywarder.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr!


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